The Federal Aviation Administration is looking into an anomaly on the Virgin Galactic flight that carried Richard Branson to space. In a piece discussing not just that particular flight but the company's various safety issues throughout the years, The New Yorker explained that Virgin's spacecraft went off-course during descent, triggering an "entry glide-cone warning." The spacecraft uses the glide cone method, which mimics water circling down the drain, for landing. Apparently, the pilots for the mission didn't fly as steeply as they should have, causing the system to raise the alarm. 

An FAA spokesperson confirmed to Reuters that the vehicle "deviated from its Air Traffic Control clearance as it returned to Spaceport America" and it's investigating the incident. The agency gives missions to space a designated airspace they can fly in to prevent collisions with commercial planes and to minimize civilian casualties in the event of an accident. Virgin's Unity 22 mission flew out of that designated airspace for a minute and forty-one seconds before the pilots were able to correct course. 

Nicholas Schmidle, author of The New Yorker piece, said he attended a meeting a few years ago, wherein the same pilots on the Unity 22 flight said a red light entry glide-cone warning should "scare the shit out of you." Apparently, that means it's too late, and that the safest course of action is to abort. In a statement it published after the article went out, though, Virgin Galactic said it "disputes the misleading characterizations and conclusions" in the piece and that the people on the flight weren't in any danger as a result of the flight deviation. The company said:

"When the vehicle encountered high altitude winds which changed the trajectory, the pilots and systems monitored the trajectory to ensure it remained within mission parameters. Our pilots responded appropriately to these changing flight conditions exactly as they were trained and in strict accordance with our established procedures. Although the flights ultimate trajectory deviated from our initial plan, it was a controlled and intentional flight path that allowed Unity 22 to successfully reach space and land safely at our Spaceport in New Mexico. At no time were passengers and crew put in any danger as a result of this change in trajectory."

It also said that the spacecraft did not fly outside of the lateral confines of the mission's protected airspace, though it did drop below the altitude of the airspace it was provided. The company added that it's "working in partnership with the FAA to address the airspace for future flights."

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has ordered Tesla to hand over detailed Autopilot data by October 22nd or else face fines of up to $115 million, according to The New York Times. Back in August, NHTSA announced that it's investigating incidents wherein Tesla vehicles with Autopilot activated crashed into parked first responder vehicles with flashing lights. The agency originally cited 11 such crashes, which resulted in 17 injuries and one death since 2018, but a 12th incident occurred just this Saturday.

In a letter it sent the automaker, the NHTSA told Tesla to produce detailed information on how the driver assistance system works. It wants to know how it ensures that human drivers will keep their eyes on the road while Autopilot is engaged and whether there are limits on where it can be used. Feds have long criticized Tesla for not having the safeguards to make sure human drivers are keeping their hands on the wheel. A few months ago, the company finally activated the camera mounted above the rear view mirror in Model 3 and Model Y vehicles to "detect and alert driver inattentiveness while Autopilot is engaged." In addition, Autopilot is only meant for use on highways, but there's nothing keeping drivers from using it on local roads. 

In addition to detailed Autopilot data, the NHTSA is also asking for information on how many cars Tesla has sold in the US. It wants to know every Autopilot-related arbitration proceeding or lawsuit the company has been involved in, along with all the complaints Tesla has received about the driver assistance technology from customers.

Toyota's e-Palette is back in service. As Roadshowreports, the automaker has resumed use of its self-driving shuttle at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo following a collision with a visually impaired athlete. Not surprisingly, both Toyota and the games' Organizing Committee have made changes in light of the crash — they've determined that both the autonomous vehicle and the circumstances around it were to blame.

The company noted there were only two guide people at the intersection where the collision occurred, making it difficult for them to watch all vehicles and pedestrians at the same time. There also wasn't a "sufficient" way of coordinating between guides and vehicle operators (such as the manual 'backups' for the e-Palette). It simply wasn't possible to ensure safety at this signal-free intersection without everyone working together, Toyota said.

The company has upgrade the e-Palette itself with louder approach warning sounds, more crew members and tweaks to manual acceleration and braking. Organizers, meanwhile, have increased the number of guides, created an alternative to traffic signals, and split those guides into groups devoted to pedestrians and vehicles. Toyota and the Committee vowed to refine the system on a "daily basis" through the rest of the Paralympics, which end on September 5th.

It's not clear if these changes will be enough. However, this does serve as a reminder that self-driving vehicle tech is still in its infancy — it could be a while before Toyota and other brands can completely trust onboard computing power to safely navigate streets.

Motional, the autonomy-focused joint venture from Hyundai and Aptiv, has chosen its next robotaxi — and it's entirely what you'd expect. The company has revealed that its first commercial robotaxi will be based on the Ioniq 5, adding self-driving hardware (cameras, LiDAR and radar) to the brand new EV. It'll also include in-cabin interfaces to give passengers some options during their ride, such as asking for an extra stop.

The crossover includes "safety redundancies" to keep critical systems running. Motional can also take remote control if the robotaxi doesn't know how to handle a given situation — likely necessary when this is a Level 4 self-driving car that can't quite operate autonomously under all conditions.

The driverless Ioniq 5 will enter service in 2023 through Motional's partnership with Lyft. While it isn't surprising that Motional would pick a Hyundai car over previous examples (such as the BMWs Aptiv used), this might be an ideal fit — it's a roomy, zero-emissions car with a 300-mile range. That might also give Motional a slight edge over other manufacturer-linked robotaxi services, such as GM's Cruise (which currently relies on the smaller, shorter-ranged Bolt EV).

When you factor in cars, trucks, planes, trains and shipping, the transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gases in the US. If we’re going to have any chance of addressing climate change, we’ll need to move away from burning fossil fuels in our cars. There’s just one problem with most electric vehicles: they depend on lithium-ion batteries made with heavy metals like cobalt. Not only is the material in short supply, but it’s mined in a way that involves child labor and the destruction of the environment. For those reasons, companies like IBM, Panasonic and Tesla have tried to make electric batteries without heavy metals.

So far, many of those efforts have yet to make it out of the lab, but a Chinese company called SVOLT claims it’s ready to start producing a cobalt-free battery at scale. At the Chengdu Motor Show, the firm showed off an 82.5KWh capacity power pack inside a vehicle from Chinese automaker Great Wall Motors. Under normal temperatures, SVOLT says its battery can deliver approximately 373 miles of range on a single charge and allow a car to accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in under five seconds.

SVOLT said the battery is “expected” to make its way to cars that go on sale in the Chinese market but didn’t offer a timeline of when that might happen, nor did it say just how many cobalt-free power packs it can manufacture at the moment. It's also worth pointing out other companies are making cobalt-free batteries at scale. As Electrek points out, most of the Model 3 units Tesla sells in China feature a lithium iron phosphate battery made by Contemporary Amperex Technology.

Late Sunday evening, half of New York City’s subway system shut down for five hours due to a power surge, stranding hundreds of passengers in the process. New York Governor Kathy Hochul called it an “unprecedented system breakdown” of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The Washington Post reports that the problems began when a power line went down. This triggered a voltage dip across the city, and two power plants and generators also went offline, forcing backup systems to come online. When trying to restore service, a power surge occurred. When this happened, the subway command center lost communications with 83 trains. The public address system also went down. Five trains with more than 550 people were stranded.

Part of the problem was the passengers themselves. While emergency personnel did evacuate as many people as they could, riders on two trains decided to leave cars on their own, a very dangerous act because tracks could be re-energized if a train was coming. Firefighters had to search the tracks to make sure there were no more remaining passengers before the subway could fully restore power.

After a phased “rolling restoration,” the system was finally back online at 1:30AM Monday morning.

Hochul has since ordered a deeper investigation into what exactly caused the surge as well as the other problems. So far, investigators have said there is no suspicion of terrorism or malicious actions.

Volkswagen has unveiled a new feature for its Car-Net connected vehicle service that lets you get 4G data from two major US telecoms. Called "Carrier of Choice," it offers the option of Verizon or T-Mobile, making it relatively easy to add your vehicle to an existing mobile plan.

Starting in September, VW owners in the US will be able to access the subscription plan options on VW's dedicated website or via its mobile app. From there, you can add an account to your existing mobile wireless provider (assuming it's Verizon or T-Mobile) and pair it with your existing Volkswagen Car-Net subscription. It will then appear as a new line-item on your existing bill. If you're not already with those carriers, you can get unlimited 4G data for $20 per month.  

Car-Net offers connected car features like remote start, locking and unlocking the vehicle, maintenance, status, teen driver alerts (curfew, boundary, speed) and more. Those features can be accessed remotely from both iPhone and Android smartphones using VW's updated mobile app. It also offers a WiFi hotspot with "unlimited" 4G connectivity for up to four devices. 

On top of those features, VW lets you access iHeart Radio and TIDAL media streaming apps with a paid subscription. It also offers the "Plus Nav" subscription with real-time traffice and route updates for $49 per year, a radio subscription with 30,000 global stations for $8 per year and a natural language speech option for $9 per year. Of course, VW models from 2019 and up come with CarPlay and Android Auto support, giving you many of those options for free. Car-Net comes standard on most 2020 model year and newer Volkswagen vehicles. .

Four days into the Tokyo Paralympic Games, Toyota removed its self-driving e-Palette vehicles from the event following a collision with a pedestrian. The automaker made the decision Friday, according to Reuters, a day after one of the pods hit a visually impaired athlete who was walking nearby. 

According to a video statement from Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda, reported in English by Reuters, the vehicle had stopped at a junction and was about to turn under manual control from an onboard operator when it hit the pedestrian at one or two kilometers-per-hour. The identity of the athlete has not been released to the public.

Toyota first announced its plans to deploy e-Palettes at the games in October 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic forced the organizers of the Olympics to delay the 2020 games by a year. The plan was to issue a fleet of 20 vehicles, each of which could run at up to 12 miles an hour on a designated loop. Notably, the plan also called for a human safety attendant on board in case something went wrong. 

Toyota also said at the time that the vehicles were adapted for the Paralympic Games, with an electric ramp on each vehicle and room for up to four wheelchairs. Additionally, Toyota adjusted some of the e-Palette's interior elements to accommodate color-blind passengers.

The injured person appears to not have been seriously hurt. After receiving medical attention, they reportedly walked back to their lodgings. The athlete is now expected to compete Saturday at 10:30am local time.

It’s been a long time coming, but if you depend on the Electrify America mobile app to find nearby charging stations, you can soon access the software through your vehicle’s Android Auto or CarPlay infotainment system. Electrify America announced today it's rolling out support for both systems this week.

The software allows you to find the location of all the approximately 650 charging stations the company operates across the US. You can also see details about each station, including the availability of individual chargers and their capacity. Once you’re at a station, you can then use the software to remotely start and stop a charging session.

While it’s something of a head-scratcher it took Electrify America until 2021 to offer Android Auto and CarPlay support, that functionality is at least now in place as the company works toward nearly tripling its network by the end of 2025. Critically, it’s also another way Electrify America needed to catch up to Tesla. The automaker’s Trip Planner, which you can access through your car’s touchscreen display, will route you to Supercharger locations that are on the way to your next destination.

Tesla is rolling out a major update for its iOS smartphone app with new controls, improved management and cool visuals. Version 4.0 also gives you the choice between two different sized widgets for your iPhone home screen. As detailed by Tesla Software Updates, both feature the same information: the name of the car, battery percentage, location (or charging info), unlock status, an image of the vehicle and the time the information was last updated. Tesla previously had a "Today" extension for iOS that was nowhere near as comprehensive as the new widgets. 

In terms of controls, you can send commands to your car immediately upon opening the app, instead of waiting for the vehicle to wake up. There's also enhanced phone key support that essentially lets you unlock multiple Teslas.

An updated visual that should be immediately noticeable is the new 3D vehicle render. There are also new animations when you charge your car and in the climate and controls sections. Design-wise, Tesla has ditched the charging section and now displays that info when your car is plugged in. You can also view Supercharging history from within the app. While the speed limit, valet mode and sentry mode settings have been moved to a new category titled Security, which includes tips on how to use the Bluetooth, phone key and location services.

To sum up, this is the biggest update to the EV maker's iOS app in a while. Recently, Tesla has mainly focused on providing bug fixes and improvements, outside of the introduction of Virtual Power Plant enrolment in July.